


Girl: Reconstructed

by Sapphael



Category: Law & Order: SVU, NCIS
Genre: Awkward Crush, F/M, Forensics, Implied/Referenced Abuse, and so is Carisi, i'm a slut for goth girls
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:07:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25362865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphael/pseuds/Sapphael
Summary: A missing girl in New York. A skeleton in DC.When Rollins recognises a NY victim on Abby's blog, NCIS's chief forensic scientist is loaned to SVU to help close the case. Follow Abby's adventures in the big apple, Barba's battle to get her into court shoes and Carisi's sacrilegious crush.
Relationships: Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr./Abby Sciuto
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rollins recognises a familiar face on Abby's blog.

“Thank you so much for coming early,” Rollins opened the door to the sleepy woman she’d texted at six am, asking a huge favour.

The sitter dropped her bags by the door and accepted Jesse from a rather harassed Amanda. “Bad night?”

“Ohhhhh yes. She was too hot, then she was too cold, then she was hungry, but she wouldn’t eat.” Rollins didn’t pause her frantic bag-packing. She criss-crossed the apartment, routing around for her keys and wallet, stuffing lipstick and badge into her pockets. She pulled a Tupperware of cous-cous from the refrigerator and slid it into her backpack. “There’s more in there and Jesse likes it so feel free to give it to her…and help yourself, of course. Formula in the usual cupboard, her wolfie is in the buggy, uhm, what else? She’s had breakfast, but she’ll probably be hungry by eight.” She scanned the apartment.

“I’ve looked after her before, Amanda. We’ll be fine. I’ve got your number if there are any problems.” The young women gave Jesse a little bounce, “we’ll have a lovely day, won’t we Jessie-boo?”

“Thank you, again. It’s just I couldn’t get any work done in the evening. She was crying and crying, and I have so many emails like you would not believe.” Amanda knew she didn’t need to make excuses, but she always felt guilty dumping Jesse on some girl before half the city was even awake. “I could really use a head-start this week.”

“It’s fine. Go catch your murderers.” The girl picked up Jesse’s pudgy hand and made her wave at Amanda.

Rollins managed a laugh. “Bye baby,” she kissed Jesse’s warm little head on her way out the door, “love you.”

She jogged down the stairs, too impatient to stand in the elevator for even thirty seconds. It was a crisp, sunny morning. The air felt clean. Of course, Rollins’ day would likely be besmirched by a case of murderous incest, or extra-marital sodomy, but for now it was simply a beautiful spring morning in New York.

Jesse had been sick the day before and Amanda had guilt-tripped herself into staying home herself. She’d had visions of a day spent nursing her baby and dabbing her feverish forehead with a damp cloth; the perfect mother soothing her crying child.

The day had _actually_ involved Jesse’s red face screaming for hours and hours with nothing able to soothe her. The pressure had built inside Amanda’s head until she had attempted a stroll to the park, but Jesse’s relentless sobbing and yelling, followed by several concerned looks had forced them back up to the apartment before they’d even left the building. Rollins couldn’t do anything to help her but couldn’t do anything else while Jesse wailed like she was being torn limb from limb. Amanda had played stay-at-home mum for one day and it had damn near broken her. She had even googled the risk of tinnitus when exposed to near-constant screaming. She was genuinely surprised that uniforms hadn’t shown up following a child abuse concern or noise complaint.

Now, she felt so light and free, speeding along the pavement on her own. The grumbling construction noise, faint sirens, and tinny radio formed blissfully mellow ambient noise; a welcome break for Amanda’s bruised ear drums.

Stepping into the coffee place she patronised, she gave the owner a little wave and stood in line as he prepared her regular order. The smell of cinnamon sugar and wood filled the shop. She dug in her bag for her phone and clicked the screen on, staring at the sleeping Jesse of her background. It was so easy to love her like that. Of course she loved Jesse, but for most of yesterday, she really hadn’t liked her.

“Amanda,” she skirted the few tourists ahead of her and moved straight to the collection counter where Antonio held out her coffee: large and syrupy and a necessary element of a good morning. Barba was a purist, but Rollins liked her coffee sweet and spicy and ideally with a silly seasonal name. “Y’all are doing God’s work here,” she said to the teenage boy behind the counter. She slapped a ten-dollar bill down. “Keep the change.”

Antonio smiled and put the bill into the tip jar to be shared out. “See ya, Miss Rollins.”

“Keep yourself safe out there!” Antonio’s father called after her. Ever since she’d told him what she did for a living, he always made some prayer or call for safety. “I wouldn’t want my daughters doing what you do, but I’m grateful you do it,” he had said once. His daughters worked there too in the holidays, folding and baking pastries in the back from five in the morning.

For a moment she imagined having a family business: kneading dough elbow to elbow with Melissa, teaching Jesse to use a till, sweeping a patio filled with smiling patrons. Special victims was not exactly a part of the world that she wanted Jesse to inherit. Amanda liked to fantasise about a future world where no one of Jesse’s generation would need to do what she did, but every sociopathic rich boy, incel or porn-addicted twelve year old she met pushed that dream further into the realms of utopian fiction. Maybe so long as there were people, there would be rape, and special victims would always exist as a kind of trauma clean-up service. Still, that didn’t mean it didn’t need doing in the now.

She made it to the office at seven thirty. Empty, as planned. Finally, she’d have an hour or so to herself. She settled into her seat and arranged the coffee and pastry on the desk in front of her. A quick breakfast and then she’d get right to writing up files.

She took a bite of the pastry, flakes falling onto her dry-cleaned trousers like petals drifting from city trees. She wiggled the mouse and the monitor woke up with a whine and a flash of blue. She tapped in her password with her less sugary hand and took the lid from her coffee. Antonio had dusted the top with nutmeg in the shape of a leaf.

She decided on a little light reading with her breakfast and opened the ancient browser that the 1PP seemed to prefer, despite its archaic security and abysmal user-experience. She sipped her coffee and navigated the well-worn path to her favourite blog.

She didn’t get much of a chance with a dedicated ‘Scenes of Crime’ team on the payroll, but Rollins liked to keep up to date with the forensics world, and where better than the legendary blog of Abby Sciuto, the Navy’s goth princess of forensics. She had been following Abby’s career since her college days and had made her way into the inner circle of followers. This particular blog was strictly for those who worked in forensics and was where Abby looked for help on cases that had even her stumped, where forensic enthusiasts could chat and torture each other with fiendish scientific puzzles. Rollins wasn’t as active as she’d once been, but she still enjoyed checking it from time to time, always when no one else was around. She felt that some of the more personal content that Abby posted, especially her photos and music recommendations, would have Carisi sprinkling her computer with holy water.

The latest post was under the title, ‘Girl: reconstructed.” Rollins took a bite of pastry, poking her tongue out to catch the caramel that oozed out, and clicked the ‘show more’ button. She almost choked on her mouthful. She looked from the monitor, to the window, then back. Jesse must have actually destroyed her sanity. That or this was the most stupendous coincidence. “No way,” she whispered to the empty office, zooming in on the grainy computer-generated image under the post’s heading. “It can’t be.”

At the top of Abby’s blog, was a picture of a New York girl that Rollins had met a little over a year previously. The picture had that eerie quality that all CGI people shared, and the nose was a little too cute, but the face was unmistakeable. Rollins had held this girl’s hand in a windowless room in Bellevue on Easter Sunday, had studied the bruises around her neck and face, had begged her to talk, promised her safety and justice. And then she had watched powerlessly as the girl had walked out of hospital and back to a house of misery and abuse. And a week later, when Rollins had gone to follow up, she had stood on the doorstep as her father and brothers had insisted she’d “moved out” and threatened Rollins with a beer bottle to the head if she didn’t stop harassing their family.

Rollins scrolled down, her breakfast abandoned on the grimy desk top. ‘Forensic facial reconstruction from a fragmented skull found in the DC area’, read the tagline. Rollins’ stomach sank. Deep down, Rollins had always known she was dead: the way her family had said, “moved out”; like “moved on”; like a deliberate small-town-Georgia euphemism for dead. She tried to decide that it wasn’t the same girl, but the cheeks, the jaw, the forehead, the eye sockets: all were inarguably her. She read the article. For the first time, she hated the certainty of science. Each feature of the tragically familiar face, each assertion was well-researched and explained. Each sentence brought more certainty. The methods were water tight. Well, case-closed on yet another missing girl.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A flashback to a suspected abuse case that Rollins dealt with last year.

**One year ago**

“Honey, you’re safe now. You can talk to me, and to Fin. We’re not going anywhere.” Rollins tried again. Even five minutes of an interview really dragged when the vic was still yet to say anything.

Fin stood guard by the door. His face was scrunched with disgust at what the girl’s own family had done, but he tried to assume a professionally stoic mask.

The girl dropped her chin, letting a few more strands of brown hair fall across her eyes. Her face alone documented months of violence, a calendar of bruises with old green and yellow across the forehead and fresh red gashes splitting her lip and the bridge of her nose like an ripe fruit tearing through its skin.

“If you talk to us, we can get you into a women’s shelter,” Rollins pleaded, squeezing the little pink hands.

The girl hissed and pulled away as Rollins pressed accidentally on her purple wrists.

“We can protect you…. if you talk to us.” Rollins tried to catch her eyes and saw them full of alien terror, like those of a hare. “Please, sweetheart. You know this isn’t right, isn’t normal, don’t you?”

Nothing.

Rollins tried a different tack. “The nurses said your name was Belle? They checked your wallet when you were brought in,” beaten to delirium and wandering the aisles of a 7/11 dressed in nothing but a filthy tee shirt and socks, Rollins resisted the urge to remind her.

The girl pulled her legs up onto the bed and wrapped her arms around them. She pressed her face into her knees and started humming.

“Do you know the person who did this?” Rollins spoke a little louder over the humming. From the age and extent of her injuries, the abuse was clearly ongoing, likely domestic, but she asked anyway.

The humming wound up a gear.

Rollins got to her feet. Maybe the girl just needed some time. “Call me, anytime. I mean it. There are places you can go.” She held out her card but the girl refused to take or even see it, so Rollins set it down next to the water glass on the table.

It was always frustrating when vic’s refused to act in their own best interest. Her ID had said she was nineteen and she was clearly competent to make her own decisions so their hands were tied. Rollins stood up and Fin shifted, conceding defeat. They had her name and address, so Rollins promised herself they’d check in soon.

* * *

**The next day**

Rollins found herself outside of a once stately, but now decrepit building. She double-checked the address against the safeguarding information the hospital had given them and nodded confirmation to Fin. Reaching up, she knocked twice.

The door wasn’t answered for almost a full minute door but Rollins had no choice but to wait. This was a follow up, not a raid. The low sound of voices and footsteps made its way through the thick door. Its obvious build quality and the newness of the hinges and bolts were at odds conspicuously with the chipped brick and cracked windows. Rollins shifted from foot to foot and glanced at Fin who was looking warily up at the cardboard-covered windows of the second floor.

At last they heard the rasp of bolts being withdrawn: three of them, Rollins counted, followed by the jangle of a chain. The door opened to reveal not one, but four men, arranged so they completely filled the frame. All four bore a strong resemblance to one another with large teeth, split and stained by nicotine, and a grin that didn’t reach the eyes.

“Hello?” growled the man in the centre, the oldest by at least thirty years.

Fin tried to see past the solid wall of men, but the house behind was in total darkness despite the bright morning. Only the smell of rotting vegetation and damp made it out into the daylight.

“Detectives Tutuola, Rollins.” They held up their badges. “Is this the address for Belle Havester?”

“She lived here.” The man’s smile cracked a little wider, giving away far more than his guarded words.

Rollins frowned. “Lived? This was her current address as of yesterday.”

“She’s moved out.”

“Do you know where she’s gone?”

“Nope,” he drawled. He raised his arm to lean on the doorframe, stretching and sinking into the languid pose.

The stench of sweat hit Rollins. Then she noticed the scratch marks on his forearm; and then the bloody knuckles; and then rapidly assessing the others, she noticed the ripped shirt on one, the split lip of another, the scratched cheek of the third.

“You boys been fighting?” she said sharply.

“Y’know how lads are.” The older man ran his tongue along his lower teeth.

“Can we come in?”

“You got a warrant?”

“Who are you?”

“I’m Nathan Havester. These are my boys: Earl, Jonah and Lucas.”

“You’re Belle’s family?” Fin wrinkled his nose.

“She was my daughter.”

“Was?” Rollins stepped up to him, pressing him face up towards his.

Nathan Havester ground his teeth and angled his face down towards Rollins. “She’s not part of this family no more. If you ain’t got a warrant, good day.”

The door slammed on the detectives.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rollins and Benson fill in the rest of the squad and plans for Abby's trip are made.

Rollins looked up blearily as Benson arrived.

“Morning.” she too held a coffee and was reading something on her phone. When Amanda didn’t respond, she paused. “Everything alright?”

“Could you look at this, Lieutenant.” Rollins twisted her monitor and swept her previously enticing breakfast aside.

Olivia fished out her glasses and scrunched her nose for optimum positioning. Then she leant on Amanda’s desk and studied the screen.

Fin and Carisi arrived. 

“Is that….” Fin spotted the photo over Olivia’s shoulder.

“Belle Havester? I think so.”

Carisi set down a paper bag (cannoli, Rollins hoped) and listened with a quizzical expression. The case had been before his time.

“Is she alive?” Olivia remembered just as well as Rollins.

“The picture is a reconstruction from skeletal remains.” Rollins let the implication hang.

Olivia nodded. They had all suspected as much. ”Where did you find this?

“It’s a forensics blog. I just read it sometimes just to keep my hand in.” Rollins scrolled down to check the details. “The Navy found the body last week. As far as they’re concerned, she’s a Jane Doe. Their forensic scientist, Abby Sciuto, did the reconstruction kinda just to see if she could.”

“Poor sweet girl,” Benson sighed, took the glasses from her face and straightened up. “Do they know she was murdered?”

“Uhhh yes,” Rollins confirmed, “but there’s no mention of an investigation.”

“Navy, you said?” Benson nodded thoughtfully, already planning phone calls and warrants and imagining the look on that sick father’s face when his sins caught up with him. “I will be talking with NCIS. This is now a murder investigation.”

\--

Benson returned to the bullpen an hour later. Through the slatted blinds, Rollins had watched her talking, seemingly without pause, into the phone. She almost felt sorry for the Navy secretary on the receiving end of her rhetoric.

“The Navy think it’s just a coincidence she was left on their land,” she announced to the squad. “Therefore, they’re willing to release the case and the body to us, and they’ve agreed to lend us their chief forensic scientist, Abby Sciuto. She was responsible for the reconstruction so she can help Barba argue its scientific validity before a judge.”

“We arresting the family?” Fin touched a hand to the bulge of his gun under his sweatshirt.

“Not yet. We don’t want to spook them. There isn’t much precedence for CGI images being granted as identification of a body so we need to see if Barba can swing it with a judge first. Then, and only then, we can collar them,” Benson finished definitively. She was still adjusting to being the brake on her squad, rather than the maverick detective pursuing her conscience regardless of her captain’s orders.

“The witness for the San Hueva case got back from her Caribbean vacation last night,” Rollins offered, looking up from her emails.

“Good. Fin and Amanda: interview her. Tread gently, or she’ll be back on a plane to Jamaica by dinnertime. Abby arrives at La Guardia at four pm. Carisi, I want you up to speed on the original case, then pick her up.”

“Yes lieutenant,” he nodded.

“And I will let ADA Barba know that we’ll be hosting a guest.” Benson returned to her office.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Abby will appear in the next chapter!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carisi collects Abby from the airport.

Carisi had read his way through the old file. Every warning and recommendation felt doom-laden in light of her body being found. Her refusal to be helped only made the case more tragic.

Fin and Rollins returned, spitting curses after their interview. “Rich people can get away with anything,” Fin glowered. He poured himself a coffee and made his way to his desk to start typing up their infuriating conversation.

Rollins glanced around and noticed Carisi ransacking the stationery cupboard. Now there was a part of the office that didn’t see much use these days. “Carisi?”

“Do we have any felt tips?” He stood on tiptoe, groping blindly through the cobwebs of the top shelf.

Bless him. “I think Liv might have some in her office for Noah, but I have to say, I don’t think Barba will be too impressed by a report in purple.”

“No, it’s for my sign,” he explained, shutting the cupboard with a metallic rattle and wiping his dusty hands on his vest.

Amanda laughed when she saw the large piece of cardboard stencilled with ‘Abby Sciuto’ that lay on his desk. “Do people really make signs for the airport, Carisi? I always thought it was more of a movie thing.”

“How else will she know who I am?” Sonny returned to his desk, blushing.

“Don’t worry. I’m sure Liv told her to be on the look out for a lanky Italian.”

A phone buzzed. “Rollins!” Fin got up urgently, shrugging on his leather jacket.

“Right. Gotta go.” Amanda stood and prepared to head straight back out. Halfway to the elevators, she paused and turned back. “Sonny?”

He looked up from his desk, the pen that had been scrunched against his nose like a moustache falling with a clatter.

“You might want to say a couple hail Marys, before you meet Abby,” Rollins suppressed a grin.

“I can control myself around women, Rollins,” he pouted.

“Not what I meant!” she called over her shoulder, disappearing into the elevator with Fin.

Carisi’s forehead wrinkled. He refocused. There were ten minutes before he needed to leave for La Guardia. He knocked politely on Benson’s door and inquired after the felt tips. Bingo. He chose a dark green and carefully filled the outlined letters on his sign, tongue poking out while he worked. He was quite proud of it. He considered doodling a couple of flowers in the background since he had a couple minutes, but then decided a Navy scientist probably wouldn’t be amused by such things. He hid the sign sheepishly under his arm, praying that the ink wouldn’t bleed into his white shirt, and left for the airport.

\--

Carisi found himself waiting at the arrivals gate beside a flock of pigeons that were fighting over a filth-encrusted sushi roll. Also waiting were a family with a screaming baby, a man eating tuna pasta from a Tupperware and a woman talking loudly into her phone about how much she hated the sister she was here to collect. Ahh, La Guardia.

Carisi shifted from foot to foot, trying to minimise the contact between his expensive Italian leather shoes and the sticky floor. He glanced up to the information board and saw only incomprehensible orange lines. He had been naïve to think anything here would be working properly. The flickering halogen bulb in the left of his peripheral vision was bringing on a headache.

People started trickling into the terminal and he stood straighter, holding his sign out and scanning through the passengers. He considered that it might have been an idea to ask Rollins what Abby looked like. A woman dressed for a business trip was all he had to go on.

Abby trotted happily through the terminal, humming a tune to the rattle of her suitcase’s wheels on the tiling. She spotted Carisi’s sign immediately and made a beeline for him. She smiled her most McGee-melting smile, but the man in the vest refused to catch her eye. He was frowning and panning across the crowd, looking mostly over her shoulder but occasionally shooting her awkward covert glances. She thought she was being pretty obvious, staring straight at him and smiling, but maybe he just wasn’t a big eye contact guy. 

Carisi scanned the crowd. He first placed his bets on a blonde woman in a pale blue suit, but she walked straight past. He tried to assess each person that streamed under the arrivals arch, but his gaze kept catching on the goth bearing down on him. He tried to look past her to a promising redhead in a pencil skirt who also seemed to be scanning for someone, but the approaching goth girl blocked her from his eyeline. She was now so close that Carisi could see a spider web tattoo stretching across her neck.

Abby reached him, beaming from ear to ear, and automatically reached to hug Carisi. He resisted so she just gave a quick squeeze and let go. The traffic lights sexual harassment seminar flashed into her head. It would not be good to start out with a red-light behaviour.

“ _You’re_ Abby Sciuto?” He was too taken aback to even attempt to mask his surprise.

“Reporting for duty!” She saluted.

Carisi mirrored her awkwardly. Is that how you were supposed to greet Navy personnel?

She laughed, making her pentagram earrings dance against her cheeks. “What’s your name?”

Carisi didn’t say anything. He was aware that he was staring and generally being rather rude, but he couldn’t help himself. He thought he’d mastered a neutral, non-judgemental expression while working in the SVU but he felt the shock showing through.

Abby had chosen her favourite pieces for the trip to New York: real leather dog collar, her stompiest boots, pleated miniskirt, and mesh top over the newest ‘Android Lust’ tee-shirt.

She was looking at him expectantly. “Oh, uhh, I’m Dominick Carisi Junior Detective people call me Sonny Sonny Carisi Detective Carisi,” he garbled. He realised he was addressing himself to her neck tattoo. He took a breath and focused on her face. “Call me Sonny.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Sonny. Can I keep the sign for my New York scrapbook?”

Carisi, still a little dazed, handed it to her wordlessly. “Uhh, can I take your bags?”

She offered him the handle of her wheelie case, which Sonny noticed was painted with a scene of literal hell, complete with flames and a big red Satan with a pitchfork. Carisi had to consciously keep his hands down to stop them from crossing himself. Rollins had been joking, but Sonny half wished he’d taken her advice literally.

They turned and started the walk out to the car. Her suitcase trundled along behind them and Carisi was happy to have that hateful picture out of his view. He found that walking alongside each other, and therefore unable to see her tattoos, he could maintain an almost-normal conversation. “Good flight?” he managed.

“Yep! I think I saw Brooke Shields! New York is so cool.”

Carisi decided to let her enjoy the tourist experience and not break it to her that it was unlikely that she was flying business class into La Guardia on a Wednesday afternoon. “1PP are putting you up at the Holiwell so we’ll go there first to drop your bags.”

“Okay,” she chirruped, her bouncy walk finding a strange sort of harmony with Carisi’s long, loping stride.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any recommendations of Abby-esque music to listen to while writing her? So far I like/would recommend:  
> \- Poppy  
> \- Jazmin Bean  
> \- BABYMETAL  
> \- Elita  
> \- Ashnikko  
> But I'm looking for more creepy girl metal that fits Abby
> 
> Also sorry but everything i know about La Guardia airport comes from one SNL joke song so i might have horribly misjudged it


	5. Chapter 5

Carisi knocked softly on Barba’s door.

“C’min.” The reply was curt, but Carisi knew they were expected so he held the door open for Abby and followed her in.

Barba finished his signature with a flourish and looked up. “The famous Abby Sciuto?” The side of his mouth twitched with amusement. Well she certainly wasn’t what he’d expected. “Good to see the Navy giving up on their famously anal dress code and changing with the times, Miss Sciuto.”

Carisi shot Rafael a pointed look from over Abby’s shoulder. You do not comment on a woman’s outfit in the workplace. Had Barba never attended a mandatory harassment seminar? Then again, it would be entirely in character for Rafael to have wheedled his way out of them.

“No. I’m just special.” She winked, making the bunches on top of her head dance.

“So Detective Rollins has said. You come highly recommended.”

“I won’t disappoint.”

“Please,” Rafael indicated the huge leather chair and Abby sat.

She took off her rucksack and rummaged for her folder of evidence and diagrams. Carisi eyed the spikes that covered the bag’s top flap of the rucksack. Since when did a backpack need metal spikes?

Barba caught Carisi’s eye and mouthed, “wow.”

Carisi shook his head silently, eyes wide and pleading. They needed her expertise and Barba’s trademark combination of sass and flirtation was a liability with new people.

“Are you staying, detective?”

“I’m sitting in on the explanation ‘til Rollins is free to takeover. If that’s okay. I’m also detailed to Abby while she’s in the city.” He took a seat on the Barba’s corner chair.

“So you’ve found our girl?”

“We found that girl,” she pointed to the picture up on Barba’s monitor. “If that’s your girl, then yes.”

“You and I have to convince a judge that this photo you made is enough to justify opening a murder inquiry.”

“Well technically it’s an image, not a photograph because it was digitally generated rather than created by exposing a photosensitive element to light but…” She realised she’d been waiting for Gibbs to curtail her rambling. “I would be delighted to walk you through the process.”

Barba settled into his chair and folded his hands on his stomach, fixing her with his intense eyes.

“Okay,” she settled herself, and checked in with her audience.

Carisi, in his corner, fished a cheap notepad and biro out of his bag.

Barba smiled at his keen little student in the corner. “So how exactly does this reconstruction work, Miss Sciuto?” Barba began.

“Okay so once you’ve got your skeleton, you wanna make copies of the pieces out of plaster so if you drop them you’re not smashing up your actual bones. Does that make sense?”

Barba noticed Carisi squirm slightly in his chair. Anyone ‘messing with’ human remains always bothered him, no matter how hard he tried to hide it. “Absolutely. Please continue.”

“Then you gotta stick all the bones, the model ones, back together. It’s kinda like a jigsaw except in three dimensions and the pieces are broken bits of human bone. Then when you’ve got a complete picture, or as complete as you can because obviously sometimes there’s stuff missing like if it's got lost or been taken for ritual…” She collected herself, “anyways. There’s all sorts of useful information you can get from the skeleton. Ooh,” she thought of a good example, “like if the growth plates in the thighs are fused they’re probably over twenty five. Or, umm…”

“But for identification purposes?” Barba focused her.

“Okay so for that, you’re mostly looking at the skull.” She held her hands in front of her like the gravedigger in Hamlet examining Yorick’s skull. “You can kinda build up the face over the bony bits and then use other clues to make an educated guess about the squishy bits like the nose and lips.” That should do it, she thought: a succinct explanation, minimum waffle. Gibbs would approve.

Barba noticed she seemed to have grown a few inches taller. A quick examination revealed that she was, in fact, now sitting on one of her feet. “If you don’t mind, I’ll need a little more detail for a judge.”

She smiled excitedly. Gibbs never asked for more detail!

Barba watched her bounce her hands as she composed the next part of her explanation, looking up to the ceiling as she fished for the words.

“So from the skull, you can get an idea of sex and ethnicity,” she turned to the side and tilted her head back, showing her profile. “Like this bit,” she traced her eyebrows, “is called the supraorbital ridge, because it’s a ridge above, or superior to, the eyes. Do you see how it’s soft? And then the forehead slopes up steeply?”

Barba nodded.

Abby glanced over to Carisi, “in comparison…”

Barba’s lip twitched as he followed her sightline to where Carisi was earnestly scribbling on his little pad.

After a few seconds, he noticed the silence and glanced up.

“Would you mind, Detective Carisi?”

“Uh sure,” he blushed and stood, almost tripping on the sleeve of his coat that trailed across the floor. He looked like a schoolboy caught doing something he shouldn’t be.

Abby jumped to her feet, beckoned Carisi enthusiastically, and pointed to a spot on the floor to one side of her.

Carisi positioned himself facing her. “Like this?”

“Perfect. Okay so here,” she gave his chin a nudge with her knuckles, and Carisi reluctantly angled his head back. “You can see that in a man the supraorbital ridge is a lot more pronounced.” She pointed to his eyebrows. “And above that, the forehead slopes up more gently than mine.” She traced a finger up his forehead.

Carisi found himself cross-eyed trying to follow her hand. He blinked and shot Barba a look out the corner of his eye.

Barba couldn’t repress a smirk.

“Do you see?” Abby mirrored Carisi’s stance so Barba could see both profiles. 

“I do. So you determined that your skull was female?”

“Yes! And not just the forehead thing; there are other factors like the weight of the skull, the sharpness of the eye sockets, the pelvis and so on.”

Carisi stepped back out of Abby’s gesticulation range. He wanted no part in a pelvis comparison scenario.

“Fascinating, Miss Sciuto, but I think we’ll have to continue this tomorrow.” Barba stretched, checking his watch. “Let’s pick this up at nine am tomorrow.”

Carisi looked relieved to have finished his shift as a human mannequin.

“Great!” Abby picked her spiky rucksack off the floor.

“Thank you for your expertise, Miss Sciuto. Detective Carisi, I assume you’ll be accompanying Miss Sciuto back to her hotel?”

“Yeah,” Carisi looked up from packing his note-taking materials into his satchel. “This way.”

Abby shot Barba a little wave, then headed out.

**Author's Note:**

> Tags will be updated as we go. Updates every Saturday.


End file.
